


If I Had A Hammer

by DizzIzzi



Series: Fire Emblem IF: Fates Rewoven [7]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Gen, Storytelling, Written over the course of a concert, for me at least, storytime!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-25 23:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DizzIzzi/pseuds/DizzIzzi
Summary: "To every thingTurn, turn, turnThere is a seasonTurn, turn, turnAnd a time for every purposeUnder heaven."Your time may have passed but it was only so ours' could sprout from the beds you tended.  You mean the world.





	If I Had A Hammer

**Author's Note:**

> For Pete Seeger, on his 100th birthday

  Morning’s cruel but the singing’s divine.  The caged songbird of Hoshido belts out daily melodies like a savant painter, a new original ever month or so.  Those who listen are her lovers and those who do not, imitators, but those below in the hustle and bustle know no better.  Today it’s the children who gather close around her; eager ears straining red to hear every ounce of her succulent voice.  On days like these she’s never without a smile, never without a spring in her step as she weaves her magic around them.  Her words are clear as water in their soul-stopping, alien tongue.

  She never wavers—either before or after—all the signs of exertion joining the swirling dance as it snakes in and between her.  Stories flow from her about ancient heroes and tales of brave peacemakers, those who stood against tyranny and injustice even if their odds were unwinnable.  Most times no one would know the stories or words she weaved but they feel it in their bones none-the-less.  She dances and they sit or stand, enraptured, straining as she imparts wisdom and warnings of a kind few talk about these days for any who’d listen.

  Caeldori loves the stillness—her self-regimented schedule so often leaving no room for moments of calm like these.  She lets the azure beauty lift her far and away with words no one knows how to speak anymore, only how to pass down their snippets of meaning from generation to generation.  She loves how it sounds on her tongue as it vibrates through her skull; like it’s completely bypassing her ears entirely.  Azura’s gestures speak of ancient wars and those who defied such long-forgotten nightmares, of faceless heroes and long-lost villains kept alive by the cadence of her song and the young sky knight eats up every second of it.

  The lithe and blessed woman, whose grace transcends her mortal shell and whose beauty rivals the shimmering moon, hanging so low and full in the sky, twirls in her place. The young knight—already a committed retainer by the tender age of thirteen—looks on in love towards the rippling woman; nothing she’s ever seen could compare.  Azura winks right at her and poor Caeldori turns as vibrant as her perpetually mussed hair, not even a proper smile escapes her lips after her crush’s blatant move.  As if teasing the poor young woman further, the dancer raises her slender fingers in prayer to the Heavens, a beseechment misting on her lips as the whole world accentuates every part of her form.  Down these hands plummet like the rushing sighs off the sheer cliffside so near yet terribly, inconsequentially far away, running sigils and invocations in the water from her hip—the wettest, most crystalline of scarves ever conjured.

  Caeldori’s heart throbs from its empty hole outwards; she pines.  Nothing’s so beautiful as this woman, dancing under the cherry blossom trees, the enchanted knight fights a losing battle against the tears pooling in her eyes. Crescendo upon crescendo lap at the audience’s shores, whispering like the roaring of the sea in their ears. Hands, legs, hips, lips, hair, belly, elbows, knees—they all shift with such importance to each movement and gesture, every word filled with meaning.  A story is being told that lasts an infinitesimal eternity as Azura falls from top to bottom.  If she died this minute, Caeldori knows it would be a happy death. 

  Too soon, too soon the song is over, the story brought to its unknowable conclusion.  Those tears, held back so hard, prick the morning grass; no one’s eyes are left dry—even stoic Asugitries to inconspicuously dab his tender baby-faced cheek.  For two brief moments the ring of listeners has front row seats to the grin of smug satisfaction on the songstress’s face, it’s almost unapologetic.  Nothing stirs, not even the birds and the distant bustle of the castle escape her spell—silence supreme.  Azura’s lips tremble just a little, the upper one quivering like it wants to say something. No one dares to break that stillness, that moment of divinity, but when she speaks it’s as if that moment just keeps on going.

    “This song, it is one my mother taught me.  It is from a people lost to time but passed down from mother to daughter until, now, I pass it down to you.  I may not teach you the movements or every word, but I promise it will stay with you.  It did for me.”

 

  Her face looks like a cloud had taken shelter in it, the sun and sheen blotted out by long dead memories. Her smile is that sun, sadly peeking out from behind its curtain, and all Caeldori can do is wonder at it.  The watery songbird often seemed sad, her placid features seen by many as dour or brooding, but this is a genuine, tear-stained sadness. 

    “It speaks of a man, a plain man, the kind who would go about his day and no one would notice.  One day an exiled prince reconquered his motherland, usurped it from the previous rulers, yet none tried to stand up to him as he pillaged and burned it.  This new king, once enthroned, set about making this land his again with huge effigies and great works of wood and stone and gold.  All things were in his image—even the land felt his cold, hard hand.  This man, this plain man, knew something his new lord did not however—that to ruin the land would ruin the nation, for he was wise far beyond even his many years.  And so down from his mountain home he traveled, following the signs of trouble and strife to the king’s very chambers.  In a past life he must have been a fighter for when he went, fearless, before the king his voice did not waver.”

 

  Azura takes in a deep breath as if to sing, her lips somehow talking in a different voice—one older and like a joyous, round, throaty laugh as it bounces off the mountainsides of his faraway home.

    “He spoke, as it is sung, thusly:

        You may not know me, but I know you.  I’ve lived a long time, longer than you ever will; I know you better than yourself.  Men worse than you’ve defiled my land, many more probably will when I’m gone again.  But to each of them, I’ll tell you, I say ‘If I had a hammer, I’d ring it all over this land should it come to harm!’ I’ll not kill nobody, no, but by God I’ll use it to sing a song, one that will shake the heavens themselves.’

    And his voice, like the breath of life itself, warned this king

        ‘Touch these forests, touch any of nature’s beauty without the respect it’s due, it’ll come for you and my songs will be its anthem. A thousand, a hundred thousand—more voices than you and all your men could never hope to count—all of them will sing in harmony with each other and you’ll get crushed beneath its mighty ring.’ ”

 

  This spirit leaves her, the exertion of it causing the stoic woman to sag but through force of will still keeps her tall, upright demeanor, her voice falling up to its normal wisp

    “And with that, not even the king could stop the man from leaving his chambers, never to be seen again.  But oh, he is heard from mountain top to mountain top, from river dell to river dell; his song ringing for an age and more—or so my mother said. That is what this song sings of.”

 

  As her final words hang in the air, Caeldori could swear she hears that haunting melody rustle the leaves, _but that would be mad…. Right?_  The only glimmer of acknowledgment is the mysterious twinkle in the exhausted storyteller’s eye, like a star shooting through the void outside the firmament, across the celestial byways as a constellation unto itself.  It sends chills up the redhead’s spine; Azura’s tales always get to her by the end of it, they are just _that_ good.

  The trees sigh a name, a whispered benediction for their champion.  None in this garden know what the trees mean but each hears it all the same in the rustle of the leaves and the exaltation of birdsong.  A ringing composition made for plucked strings and voices but now, after so long, carried only by nature and the story about a story.  A name sung across many worlds far beyond this one, worlds whose people will never know the true source of this legend reborn time and time again where he’s needed.  One who rings out love and hammers out justice and freedom for those in need, who protects the land and those who walk with it, becoming a magic all his own

  
For magic is, after all, not just sigils and arcane symbols, something many find all too easy to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> I wish to thank everyone who attended John McCutcheon's concert at The Ark for Pete's 100th birthday. Your exhuberance and love is always inspiring but this time it was personal. Thank you to John for putting on a wonderful concert and memorial for a dear friend, we all miss him and you probably more than most. Thank you to Pete Seeger because without you America wouldn't be as bright, my life wouldn't be as bright. You are a shining star in the night and one I will always listen to time after time. Wherever you are, I know you're in good company.
> 
> With that off-the-cuff Eulogy over with, I got the specific idea for part of this from the game "Eternal Sonata" because, as a musician and JRPG fan, who wouldn't want to be reborn in an alternate universe and use your music to save the world? Plus Chopin, he's just divine, nuff said.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it.  
> -Izzi


End file.
